“国事误于正人”:庚子主战派的错位认同——以刚毅、赵舒翘为例

The Wrong Identification of the War Hawk during the Boxer Rebellion——Taking Gang Yi and Zhao Shuqiao as Examples

在中国近代史研究里,刚毅、赵舒翘是庚子主战派在清廷中枢的最重要代表,在三千年未有之大变局时代,他们仍然活跃在旧式行政领域,是传统技术官僚在晚清的余绪。二人均起自寒微,凭借个人努力,在法律知识主导权力运作的刑部获得快速升迁,继而外升内调,在甲午、庚子之间先后入枢。这样的出身背景、仕宦经验、性格作风,塑造了他们勤于吏干而昧于大局的思想认同,最终迷失于激烈的权力斗争,成为庚子"祸首"。刚、赵等庚子主战派的认同悲剧,酝酿于鸦片战争后民族主义与近代化追求的相互角力之中,前者始终在道义上占据上风,戊戌以后沦为权力的木偶,汇入民粹主义的洪流。而随着庚、辛之后主流舆论的彻底转向,庚子主战派冥顽保守的历史形象也被日益固化,其在传统领域的治绩不再为人关注。

Amid the prevalent opinions of modern Chinese history study,those war advocates during the Boxer Rebellion are always being labeled as reckless,stubborn,xenophobia and regarded as a destructive force to the nation.However let's put those labels aside and have a prudent check of their life journey and thought recognition,then how do we understand the distorted choices they had made amid that drastic change from the old glory to a new era?Gang Yi and Zhao Shuqiao were among the most important figures representing the war advocates among the pivotal governing elites of Qing Dynasty.In the era of great change in the past three thousand years,they were remnants of traditional technocrats in the late Qing Dynasty,still active in an archaic administrative field.Both were born and raised in poor families and relied on their personal endeavors to secure a speedy promotion in the criminal department where legal knowledge dominated power.After being transferred to local government positions and subsequently relocated to central government,they were successively included in the central government between 1894 and 1900.This kind of background,official experience,personality and bearing had formed their thought recognition of emphasis on diligence and negligence on the whole situation.Eventually they lost themselves in the fierce power struggle and became the"culprits"of the Boxer Rebellion.This tragic recognition problem happening on those war advocates such as Gang and Zhao was brewing amid the tug-of-war between the post-nationalism and pursuit of modernization,so wherein the former was always at a moral vantage point,but devolved into a power puppet after 1898 and converged into pure populism.However with the abrupt turn of the mainstream opinion in the post-1900 era,the stubborn and conservative historical image of those war advocates amid the Boxer Rebellion were even more deeply consolidated and their achievements as governmental officials in a traditional sense were disregarded since then.